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Procedia Engineering 42 (2012) 376 383

20th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering CHISA 2012

25 29 August 2012, Prague, Czech Republic

Design of SRU thermal reactor and waste heat boiler

considering recombination reactions
G. Manentia a, D. Papasiderob, F. Manentib, G. Bozzanob, S. Pieruccib
a

FBM Hudson Italiana SpA, R&D Dept., Via Valtrighe 5, 24030 Terno dIsola (BG), Italy
Politecnico di Milano, CMIC Dept. Giulio Natta, Piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy

Abstract
The first section of sulphur recovery units (SRU) based on Claus process is constituted of a burner, a thermal reactor
and a waste heat boiler and it is designed to oxidize acid gases by air. Because of several oxidation reactions are
reversible, as the gas is cooled in the boiler recombination reactions occur, modifying the heat exchange and gas
composition. This may have a significant effect on the design of the waste heat boiler and downstream Claus reactors.
In this study, the design of thermal reactor and waste heat boiler system is proposed by adopting a common model.
The model, including a detailed kinetic scheme, considers recombination reactions in the boiler.

2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection under responsibility of the Congress Scientific Committee
(Petr Kluson)
Keywords: Sulphur recovery unit; waste heat boiler; kinetics.

1. Introduction
The Claus process is the most common route for recovering sulphur from acid gases coming from oil
and gas desulphurization treatment. Typically, a SRU is composed of a burner, a thermal reactor (TR), a
waste heat boiler (WHB) (Fig. 1) and a train of sulphur condensers and catalytic Claus reactors. The acid
gas, which is mainly constituted of H2S, H2O, CO2, CO, NH3 and hydrocarbons, is mixed with air and

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39.035.4941364; fax: +39.035.4941236.

E-mail address: giovanni.manenti@fbmhudson.com.

1877-7058 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.07.429

G. Manenti et al. / Procedia Engineering 42 (2012) 376 383

377

oxidized at high temperature by means of the burner and TR, which provides for the necessary residence
time. Next, the gas is cooled down in the WHB and the first condenser, and sent to the first Claus reactor.
Nomenclature
C
Cp
D
H
E
h
k
K
M
P
R
T
v
x
m
y

Species concentration (molm -3)

Specific heat at constant pressure (Jkg-1C-1)
Diameter (m)
Heat of reaction (Jmol-1)
Activation energy (Jmol-1)
Heat transfer coeff. (Wm-2C-1)
Kinetic constant (.s-1)
Rate of reaction (molm-3s-1)
Molecular weight (kgkmol-1)
Pressure (kPa)
Universal constant of gas (Jmol-1C-1)
Temperature (C or K)
Velocity (ms-1)
Axial coordinate (m)
Mass fraction (-)
Molar fraction (-)
Dynamic viscosity (kgs-1m-1)
Thermal conductivity (Wm-1C-1)
Density (kgm-3)

THERMAL
REACTOR

Fig. 1. Layout of a typical SRU WHB package.

The key oxidation reaction occurring in the TR is:

H 2S  1.5O2 l SO2  H 2O

(r.1)

where a third of the H2S is consumed by proper stoichiometric amount of oxygen; other oxidation
reactions lead to formation of elemental sulphur (S or S2). Also thermal decomposition of H2S in the TR is
an important recovering reaction, which gives significant amount of H2 and sulphur. The residual H2S is

G. Manenti et al. / Procedia Engineering 42 (2012) 376 383

378

oxidized in the downstream Claus reactors by the SO2 produced in TR and alumina-based catalyst
according to the overall reaction:
2H 2S  SO2 R 3 x S x  2H 2O
(r.2)
which elemental sulphur is next removed by condensation.
The TR is an axial-symmetric chamber internally lined by refractory in order to prevent overheating on
vessel walls. The WHB is used for cooling the hot gas leaving the TR to an operating temperature suitable
for next sulphur condensation and catalytic oxidation. This boiler, directly connected to the TR, is of
shell-and-tube type, with gas flowing on tube-side in one or two passes, and with boiling water on shellside. Either a kettle type boiler or a boiler-and-drum package is used; a moderate slope towards outlet of
tubes may be installed for draining possible liquid sulphur. Boiling water performs a rapid and effective
removal of heat. Depending on acid gas composition, temperature of combusted gases in the TR is in a
range of 1100 to 1400C; at the boiler outlet, temperature is around 300C. However, the cooling is not so
rapid to prevent recombination reactions, which one of the most important is:
H 2  0.5S2 R H 2S
(r.3)
Also CO can recombine with S2 to form mercaptans. Recombination reactions are viable until relevant
quench temperatures are reached and gas composition is frozen; typically, below 900-1000C
recombination is quenched. As a consequence, exchanging tubes of the boiler work as non-adiabatic plug
flow reactors.
Taking into account recombination reactions in the design of the WHB is important. Such reactions are
mainly exothermic; therefore, they give an additional release of heat. This may have an impact on boiler
heat transfer surface, number and operating temperature of tubes. From a process plant standpoint,
recombination downgrades the gas composition as hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans are formed: the
performance of the sulphur recovery is lowered and the required amount of SO2 in reaction (r.2) is
increased, along with the amount of oxidation air, blower power consumption and equipment volumes.
A model for the design of the TR and WHB is described hereby. Following a previous work
investigating quench times in a waste heat boiler [1], the computational model is written for a monodimensional geometry and stationary conditions, and it is constituted of energy and chemical species
conservation equations. Oxidation and recombination reactions are taken into account considering a
detailed kinetic scheme [2]. The study shows that TR and WHB can be considered a single unit, which
design is done by a common computational model.
2. Description of the model
Oxidation of acid gas starts in the burner flame and continues along the TR until a thermodynamic
equilibrium is reached. Due to high temperature and residence time (usually >1.0s), gas composition
entering the WHB is about at equilibrium. As the gas is cooled in the WHB, equilibrium and kinetics are
shifted. Considering a typical WHB of fire-tube, one-pass type, directly connected to the TR, the gas is
evenly distributed in the horizontal tubes, whereas on shell-side water is in boiling conditions. As tubes
are identical and immersed in a pool, they are independent one other; as a consequence, one tube only is
representative of the WHB. Operating pressure and pressure drop are in the range of 150 kPa(a) and 3
kPa; therefore, the momentum equation can be dropped without significant effect on thermal-fluiddynamics parameters. As the gas is characterized by high Reynolds and Peclet numbers, diffusive terms
can be neglected. The flow is assumed to be fully developed both in TR and WHB, with flat profiles
across the sections. This assumption can be considered acceptable even in case of swirling flow in the TR
provided that residence time is large and resulting fluid-dynamics is axial-symmetric like. Accordingly,

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379

the TR and the WHB work as a plug flow reactor; resulting energy and species conservation equations
are:

d
4
vC pT ) = h (T Text ) ( H r ) K r
(
dx
D
r

(1)

d
( vCi ) = K r ,i
dx
r

(2)

with the reaction rate, K, of generic form:

K r ,i = kr ,i Ci C j e

Er

RT

(3)

where subscripts ext, r and i,j refer to external fluid, chemical reactions and species, respectively. Eq. (1)
and (2) describe temperature and gas composition along both TR and WHB tube axis. The first righthand-side term of Eq. (1), which represents the heat exchanged with ambient, air for TR and water for
WHB, allows differentiating the equipment. For TR, the heat transfer is negligible as a considerable
refractory layer is installed; therefore, the overall heat exchange coefficient, h, is small and the TR works
practically as an adiabatic plug flow reactor. On the contrary, the coefficient h is large for the WHB, and
the tube works as a non-adiabatic plug flow reactor. As a result, Eq. (1) and (2) can be adopted for the
design of the TR-WHB system provided that h, D and Text are changed as the coordinate x corresponds to
the inlet of tubes.
Due to operating conditions, an ideal scheme is assumed for density of the gas; specific heat is
obtained by a weighted average of heats of species i. Chemical-physical quantities, viscosity and thermal
conductivity, are obtained by correlations based on composition and temperature, as Chapman-EnskogWilke and Wassiljewa-Mason-Saxena schemes (Eq. 6 and 7), respectively:

P
RT

yM
i

C = mi Ci ( Pinlet , T )
i

=
i

(4)

yi i ( Pinlet , T )

y
j

i, j

(5)

(6)

=
i

yi i ( Pinlet , T )

y
j

i, j

(7)

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380

As a case study, hereby fouling is not considered for WHB tubes (clean conditions); under this
assumption, the overall heat transfer coefficient is determined, with good approximation, only by gas as
boiling water and tube wall present a heat transfer resistance of two orders of magnitude greater than the
resistance of gas flowing in tubes. The coefficient h is obtained by a typical turbulent flow correlation,
including Reynolds and Prandtl numbers:
0.8

vD C p
h = 0.023

0.33

(8)

Kinetics of acid gas combustion and recombination is quite complex, involving several tens of species,
including radicals, and it has not been clearly and comprehensively defined yet. Reviews of
thermodynamics and kinetics have been given in literature [3,4,5]. For this study, an overall kinetic
scheme involving no. 130 species and more than 1500 reactions has been implemented [2].
Eq. (1) to (8) form a differential-algebraic stiff system. Computational stiffness arises for the presence
of radical species in the kinetics scheme. Solution is obtained by Gear multi-value method with variable
order and integration step, based on Newton method. Such methods are implemented in the BzzMath
library [6], an OOP and parallelized (openMP) computing package.
3. Results
The described model has been applied to two operating systems. For the first, inlet acid gas and
combustion air compositions are given, and the TR-WHB system is modelled as a single plug flow
reactor. For the second system, the model is applied to the WHB only, for a given combusted gas
composition at the inlet of tubes. Inlet operating conditions and geometrical parameters are reported in
Tables 1 and 2; computational results are reported in Fig. 2 and 3.
For system 1, results show that the gas temperature is at uniform temperature in the TR and
composition is about at equilibrium at the inlet of tubes. At x= 6.5m, the overall heat transfer coefficient h
has a steep increase, and thermodynamics and kinetics are suddenly shifted by the cooling of gas.
Recombination occurs and significant amount of H2S is formed. SO2 and CO2 are formed and consumed
respectively; as there is no free oxygen, the SO2 acts as an oxygen pusher. Also COS is formed.
Recombination is quenched at x=7.5m approx., which corresponds to a residence time in the WHB tube
of 0.25s and to a gas temperature of 900C about; then, gas composition is frozen till outlet of tubes. This
is in line with experimental observations and results discussed in previous literature [1,7].
Same considerations for Fig. 3, except for the very first portion of tubes were H2S is temporarily
formed. This is due to the fact that the inlet combusted gas composition in Table 2 is not at equilibrium;
then, hydrogen and elemental sulphur are recombined into hydrogen sulphide. After 2m from the tube
inlet, the recombination is quenched.
4. Conclusions
Thermal reactors and waste heat boilers operating in sulphur recovery units can be considered a single
plug flow reactor. The thermal reactor represents the adiabatic portion, whereas the boiler the nonadiabatic one. Accordingly, as proposed in the paper, they can be designed by the same model, provided
that the heat transfer is properly set along the axial coordinate. The model takes into account the
recombination reactions arising along the boiler tube. This recombination is responsible for an additional
release of heat and a significant change in gas composition. As shown by results, the gas is about

G. Manenti et al. / Procedia Engineering 42 (2012) 376 383

thermally and chemically at equilibrium in the thermal reactor by installing a proper residence time;
recombination appears, mainly for H2S, in the first part of boiler tubes; as the gas is cooled down to a
quench temperature, 900C approx., recombination is ceased and composition is frozen.
Table 1. Inlet operating conditions and geometry parameters (system 1).
Acid gas composition (% vol)

H2S=0.7955, CH4=0.021, C2H6=0.0140, C3H8=0.0198,

BUT12=0.0011, H2O=0.0640, CO=0.0032, CO2=0.0662,
H2=0.0037, NH3=0.0048

Acid gas flow rate (kg/h)

4230.5

Acid gas temperature (C)

125.0

Combustion air composition (% vol)

H2O=0.0970, N2=0.7138, O2=0.1892

Combustion air flow rate (kg/h)

8907.1

Combustion air temperature (C)

45.0

Operating pressure in TR (kPa(a))

159.0

TR internal diameter (m)

1.550

TR length (m)

6.500

Heat losses for TR (constant) (kW/m2)

3.500

Boiling water temperature in WHB (C)

204.0

WHB tube number (-)

470

WHB tube internal diameter (m)

0.050

WHB tube length (m)

6.000

Table 2. Inlet operating conditions and geometry parameters (system 2).

Gas composition at WHB inlet (% vol)

Sx=9.200, COS=0.028, H2S=6.023, SO2=3.025

H2O=25.664, CO=0.019, CO2=0.604, N2=53.539,
H2=1.899

Gas flow rate (per tube) (kg/h)

129.932

Gas temperature at WHB inlet (C)

1351.0

Gas pressure at WHB inlet (kPa(a))

162.6

Boiling water temperature in WHB (C)

201.2

WHB tube internal diameter (m)

0.048

WHB tube length (m)

9.150

381

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382

1.80E+03

1.40E+03

1.40E+03

Temperature (K)

Temperature (K)

1.80E+03

1.00E+03
6.00E+02
2.00E+02
0

0.5

1.5

1.00E+03
6.00E+02

2.5

2.00E+02
0

Time (s)

10

11

12

13

Reactor Length (m)

.100

Mole Fraction

.080
.060
.040
.020
.000
0

5
6
7
8
9
Reactor Length (m)

10

11

12

13

H2S Profile
SO2 Profile
O2 Profile
CO Profile
CO2 Profile
S2 Profile
H2 Profile
H2S Exp. Out
SO2 Exp. Out
O2 Exp. Out
CO Exp. Out
CO2 Exp. Out
S2 Exp. Out
H2 Exp. Out

SO2 Profile

.040

Mole Fraction

O2 Profile
CO Profile

.030

CO2 Profile
H2 Profile

.020

SO2 Exp. Out

O2 Exp. Out
CO Exp. Out

.010

CO2 Exp. Out

H2 Exp. Out

.000
0

10

11

12

13

Reactor Length (m)

Fig. 2. System 1 - Gas temperature versus residence time (left-top) and axial coordinate (right-top), and gas composition profiles.
1450

10.00

Mole Fraction %

Temperature [C]

1250
1050
850
650
450

8.00

S2
CO

COS
CO2

H2S
H2

SO2

6.00
4.00
2.00
0.00

250
0

10

Reactor Length [m]

Fig. 3. System 2 - Gas temperature (left) and gas composition (right).

4
6
Reactor Length [m]

10

G. Manenti et al. / Procedia Engineering 42 (2012) 376 383

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